


Those Truths the Hand Can Touch

by Byacolate



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: Only the privileged few may know the sacred alchemy of human touch.





	Those Truths the Hand Can Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coolgirl3890](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolgirl3890/gifts).



> A commission for coolgirl3890 with Aloth and their sweet touch-starved Death Godlike watcher, Nameless. He'll have his happy ending!

The night insects swathed Aloth in their unholy cries as the Fonestu heat weighed him down like two unwelcome coverlets. Deep Summer in the Dyrwood left much to be desired, as far as he was concerned - hot and abysmally damp, leaving leather and cloth sticking to what little of him was not burnt red by the unforgiving sun. 

 

Even the reprieve of moonlight was little comfort; there was no sweet breeze that did not have everyone tensing at the thought and fear of a Bîaŵac, and night was hardly cooler than the day. 

 

Aloth was miserable, sulking and pretending not to sulk as he stared across the campfire. Hiravias and Sagani were debating in their dry, friendsome way about the proper technique to skin a deer as they tended to the feast on the spit. Kana stood over them, happy enough to keep out of their argument as long as they did not tamper with his spices. 

 

As Sagani carved at the roast with a blade, fat dripped from the body of the doe and into the fire. It sizzled and popped with such voracity that Aloth made to scoot himself an inch further from the flames. Better to be safe than singed, he thought, his eyes finally focusing on his surroundings. 

 

Sagani swaddled a hefty cut of meat with a leaf that dwarfed her palm and dropped a strip into Itumaak’s eager mouth as she stepped over to the Watcher. He sat cross-legged by the fire on his pack, tending to his torn cloak, but his attention belonged to Sagani the moment she approached.

 

They spoke softly to one another, too softly for Aloth to parse out over the crackling fire and conversation, but he watched as she handed him the cut of meat and clasped his shoulder. 

 

A few more words passed between them before Sagani dropped her hand and returned to the fire to cut another piece; Aloth’s attention remained with the Watcher who seemed, for the briefest moment, to list to the side. 

 

He caught himself, the plumes of smoke rising from the back of his head wavering with some emotion his face did not betray, and slowly began picking at his supper.

 

Though the moment was a bit odd, the Watcher was not without his eccentricities, and so Aloth put it out of his mind. 

 

Then Majauton rolled around, and in Iselmyr’s humble opinion, it was  _ abou’ rutting time. _ Early Autumn had carried with it still the blazing heat of Late Summer, so Mid Autumn was the boon that all in the Dyrwood were quite desperate for. 

 

Edér and Hiravias became particularly energetic at the changing of the seasons. They walked with a spring in their steps, and Aloth was the unfortunate recipient of the return of their tactile natures. Like a great bear waking from winter’s slumber, so too did Hiravias and Edér’s clasping, grabbing hands return to the dynamic of their party. 

 

No one dared reach for Pallegina without her request, Durance was a pox even to the friendliest of beasts, and Sagani was selectively indulgent. As the days grew colder, Kana’s own personal boundaries grew less and less, and the Watcher…

 

Aloth noticed right away the change in him - the falter in his step when Edér clapped him between his shoulder blades, and the way his frame went still when Hiravias grabbed at his waist in little bouts of excitability. 

 

In the beginning, Aloth had wondered - fretfully, perhaps - that such stillness spoke to discomfort. Yet over time, this did not seem entirely so. When Hiravias tugged at his wrist for attention or Edér squeezed his shoulder over a drink, the look on the Watcher’s face seemed… adrift. And once they ferried themselves away, he would scrub a hand over his mouth and the smoke rising from his skull would puff away like a steam engine.

 

Certainly he seemed disturbed in some way, but not  _ perturbed. _ The Watcher of Caed Nua simply looked lost.

 

That was all well and good, in Aloth’s own opinion. He did not rightly know himself how he felt about bearing the weight of another person’s physical affection. 

 

Still, it did not seem prudent to assert his opinions where they were not requested, so Aloth kept silent until Majivèrno. Midwinter heralded snow, frozen rain, and endless protestation from Kana about leaving the hearthfire of home. When they set out into the frozen Dyrwood, even Pallegina was not safe from his proximity. Kana would squeeze himself between any warm bodies he could find when they bedded down for the night, shelled out from his own coin purse for detours to nearby inns, and swaddled himself like a babe in cloaks. 

 

Privately Aloth agreed with his grousing, but kept to himself, bundled in winter clothes and puffing hot breath onto his fingertips. He watched for the third time in a single day that Kana petitioned the Watcher to combine bedrolls to share warmth. 

  
Hiravias was the one to volunteer instead, and for once, Aloth summoned the audacity to approach Nameless himself. 

 

“May I?” Aloth gestured to the space beside the Watcher, who had busied himself stoking the fire. Gingerly Aloth sat when permission was granted, tucking his hands up against his body under the cloak. The Watcher’s warmth was so near, but Aloth dared not indulge. 

 

“Are you well, Aloth?”

 

“Hm? Oh, me? Yes, of course. I could not be better.” It was untrue, of course; he could be somewhere warm and dry, full of wine and tucked away in a quiet corner with a book. But he was here, and here was not so very terrible given the company he kept. “As a matter of fact, I was hoping I might speak with you about… you.”

 

“Me?” He pulled back the iron rod, tapping the clinging embers against frozen rock before he left it to lie on the ground. On the other side of the fire Sagani and Pallegina spoke in low voices while Kana’s snores began to build to a crescendo. 

 

“Quite. I do not mean to overstep, but it has come to my attention that you may be… that is, you seem unnerved by…” Aloth faltered, his fridged fingers digging into the meat of his sides. An awkward breath of a laugh punched out of his throat as it by reflex. “Forgive me. This is a strange matter. I only… you seem discomfited by certain physicalities of our companions. I wished to extend my concerns.” Sheepishly, he glanced at the Watcher from beneath the shield of his eyelashes. “I… hope they are unwarranted.”

 

He watched the Watcher brush grey fingers over his forearm which lay beneath thick wool of his winter coat. 

 

“I’m - I think I’m alright. I’m not used to… that is, I may just be… a little strange.” He turned, and Aloth could only assume that those hidden eyes beheld him. “Thank you, Aloth. For your concern.” 

 

The Watcher was his friend, his dear friend, and perhaps a spark of something even less familiar. Aloth did not think he was too bold in assuming that because of this, he could parse comfort from discomfort in the Watcher’s body language. If the Watcher wanted to speak of such things, clearly it was not with Aloth. And so, with grace and good breeding, he let the subject lie. 

 

When they parted ways in Tarprima, there were many words between them left unsaid. They were words that Aloth did not know how to say, and whatever they were would cause only undue strife if he tried to say them now. He was boarding a vessel bound for Aedyr, and surely no words of his own would be the catalyst to keep him in the Dyrwood.

 

When the Watcher accompanied him to Ondra’s Gift to port, Aloth felt the words unsaid like an endless chasm between them. In spite of it all - every moment of death defied, every footstep of the Leaden Key tread between them, and every kind word - and they all rose up like a tidal wave, crashing against his chest. The salty winds of Late Spring upon the sea whipped his cloak and tossed the Watcher’s smoke adrift, and Aloth nearly broke his - 

 

“Fye, all this carry’n oan, when ye could jist -”

 

Heart in his throat, Aloth shut his mouth with a snap and reached out over the chasm, pale fingers a-tremble with embarrassment as he took the Watcher’s hand in his. 

 

“Thank you. Again. For everything.”

 

Dark lips parted, surprised and still. 

 

Aloth squeezed his hand once between both of his own and finally let him go.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

Five years were not so long. Five years were everything.

 

How strange and wonderful it was to see him again.

 

Nothing much had changed about him outwardly. There were a few new scars, and tidier clothes. He smelled forever of salt and fruit rinds. He walked a little taller, this man with half a soul.

 

Edér treated him tenderly, or as tender as Edér was able. He found his way to the Watcher’s side with enviable ease. He kept the Watcher forever in his sight, and there was something haunted in the way his eyes did follow him. He would touch the Watcher’s back, his elbow, clasp him by the nape of his neck. Aloth did not know what to feel about this. 

 

The people of the Deadfire weren’t shy to touch, and there was reverence in how they regarded one of Berath’s own. Xoti fawned over him. Serafen eyed him over and made one tasteless innuendo after the next. Maia Rua was impressive, and unabashed in her display. Tehēku made to wrap him around his little finger when in reality, much the opposite was true. 

 

Aloth… did not much care for Tehēku, with his expressive hips, his soulful eyes, and the exhausting passion of his every movement. He did not like his haughtiness or his pride and the naivety they painted of him - did not care for the familiarity of it all. 

 

He did not care for how easily it came to Tehēku to approach someone that drew him in, a gaudy fish on a lure of obsidian darkness. He did not care for the way he could speak his interest so boldly to the Watcher when Aloth had kept it knotted so tightly inside himself that only five years of separation could unfurl it.

 

It was all Aloth could do to welcome the Watcher to him whenever he was near and keep bottled within himself his merciless wishes. 

 

_ I want so deeply to be yours. _

 

But… the Watcher did not yield to Serafen’s advances, nor Xoti’s, or Maia’s, or even honey-tongued Tehēku’s. He did not follow Ymir into the parlor for an eve, and he did not take any of the restless crew into his quarters. 

 

Instead, he spent his evenings in the company of Aloth. Edér too, when he wasn’t too busy drinking and spinning yarns above deck, and Pallegina when she felt a conversation merited her input. But his presence made Aloth bold, and Aloth’s low-burning jealously made him bolder. 

 

And it seemed no touch but Aloth’s made the Watcher stiffen so.

 

The passing of time was nigh impossible to track below deck, so Aloth took the Watcher’s word for it when he approached with drink in hand that the sun had set. They would be at sea for many days, and reading settled Aloth’s stomach and his nerves. When he brushed the Watcher’s fingers to take the drink, the cup nearly fell between them. 

 

Aloth had anticipated this. He fumbled with the goblet, and the Watcher fumbled with him. “Never mind that,” Aloth murmured at the apologies about his wine-stained boots. He looked up, and the Watcher… he could not remember the last time they had ever been so close. How very unlike himself it was, how bold of Aloth it must have seemed when his fingers tightened just so around his wrist. But how could he let him go?

 

Rigid for only a moment, the Watcher swallowed loudly enough for Aloth to hear and leaned in - shuffled forward on one foot, half drunk in his movements. 

 

Aloth had no time to search his face before he leaned against him, pulse alight under Aloth’s fingers.

 

“Ah.” Not distasteful, then. Aloth had always been a fool. Slowly, he leaned into the Watcher as well, two rapid-fire pulses beating against one another like victory drums. “Indeed,” he murmured with a faint little grin. “I feel quite the same.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a high fantasy comic about a wandering bard! [Check it out from the beginning HERE!](https://bardbouquet.tumblr.com/post/179195348759/a-dwarven-heirloom-a-blade-in-the-dark-and-a)
> 
> "Stones, flesh, stars, and those truths the hand can touch." - Albert Camus, from The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays; “Summer in Algiers,” 
> 
> My Tumblr: [wardencommando](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).  
> Inquire about fic reque$t$ [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> 


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